The Ink And Paint Club
by Unoriginality
Summary: It started as just a date to a themed supperclub in Midtown Manhattan. So innocently, so wonderfully. The styles, the food, the stage... and then it just had to get ruined. (A BTWWL fic.)
1. Save The Date

"Okay, so what the fuck is that thing?" Bucky asked, staring at the TV.

"I have no idea," Steve said, walking his character- Link, who Bucky still wasn't sure why he wasn't the title character in the series - around a room in some temple. "It looks like an undead alien from Roswell."

"With hoop earrings," Bucky added. He grabbed his tablet. "Have fun killing it, I'm going to find out what the hell that ugly thing's called."

Steve glanced over at him. "You know, I don't know why you even put that down. You look up every creature in this game instead of trying to find out what it is through the story."

Bucky didn't look back up at the TV or at Steve while he scrolled through the wikia page on the game's monsters. "The game never tells us. I just want a name instead of 'that fabulous alien thi-'" He was interrupted by the game emitting a horrible screech and Steve swearing. He lowered his tablet, staring. "That thing is eating your head."

"I noticed," Steve said, sounding irritated, loudly bashing the buttons on his controller. Link managed to get free, and Steve had him skitter away from the monster. "Okay, while you're looking for a name, find out how to kill it, because it paralyzes you when you get near it."

"Try throwing bombs at it," Bucky said. "Bombs make things go boom." He went back to his tablet, leaving Steve to figure out how to kill the monster without getting his head eaten.

"Well, the bow and arrow is useless," Steve said, annoyed. "Fine, I'll try bombs. So help me, if this works, I'm smothering you with a pillow."

That got Bucky to finally look over at him. "Why? What the hell did I do?"

"Your stupid logic of 'throw explosives at it' would've actually worked." The bomb on the game exploded, and Steve frowned. "Okay, it hurt it." He gave Bucky the side eye. "I want to know why your 'blow it up' tactic always seems to work."

Bucky shrugged. "Because it's a good tactic." He just about went back to his tablet when their personal phone on the coffee table pinged with a text message. "I got it." He leaned forward and grabbed the phone, eyeing the message from Maria. "It's for me anyway."

_Care to take me on a date this week, Bucky?_

He set aside his tablet to reply. "Oh, and those things are ReDeads, by the way. I dunno why they're not just UnDeads, but this game is weird." _Any excuse to see your beautiful face._

"What, were they dead, then alive, then dead again?" Steve asked.

Bucky looked at his tablet. "Doesn't say, just that that's what they're called."

The phone pinged. _I could come over for that._

Bucky smiled at the text, glancing up briefly to watch Steve trying to navigate a room full of poisonous fog with black ground hole monsters- a quick look at the tablet showed that they were called 'Floormasters', what a weird game -then went back to the phone. "I see you got by the ReDeads," he said, somewhat distracted by the text he was reading. _You're free to. Might save Steve from my running commentary on his game for awhile._

"I did," Steve said, sounding grumpy. He sat back, head tilted back. "And I don't think I like the room I went into after that."

"Being defeated by a video game?" Bucky said, entirely too amused for his own good, if the dirty look Steve shot him was any indication.

"Just talk to whoever's texting you," Steve said. "All right, trying that again."

_Or add to it_, was Maria's response. Bucky could practically hear the amusement in her words.

_H_i Bucky set the phone aside. "For your information, my girlfriend. She has an idea for a date that probably doesn't involve annoying you for awhile."

Steve paused his game just long enough to point sternly at Bucky. "You are hereby ordered to go on that date right now. This game is giving me enough grief without you adding to it." He went back to that poisonous fog room.

"Weren't you just here?" Bucky asked, watching Steve work his way through a very crude maze. The poison fog kept him from using any weapons, and the Floormasters were everywhere.

"Yes," Steve said. "If you get caught by one of these things, they send you back to the room before and you have to start over. And I can't kill them."

Ping. _There's a supperclub in town called The Ink And Paint. Sound familiar?_

"And you don't have fast enough reflexes to avoid them?" Bucky asked incredulously while he replied to his text. _That's the place from that Roger Rabbit movie you showed me, wasn't it? Did Disney open an attraction?_

Steve grumbled. "I do. But I'm not perfect. This is only my second time through this room."

Ping. _No. Not Disney, but its site says it's modeled on the movie. If you take me, I'll even dress up nice for you._

Bucky smiled. "Steve, I got a great girl, you know that?" _A chance to see you in a pretty dress? You know I'm there._

"What'd she say?" Steve asked. "Ha!"

Bucky's eyebrows raised, mouth open to respond, staring at the screen. "I see your victory over the fog maze is more important than your question."

"Shut up. What'd she say?"

Ping. _Name a time and day and come pick me up._

"She found a supperclub set up like the places we used to go to," Bucky said. He set about finding out the club's hours and location, and the approximate date. They took reservations, and Bucky wasn't sure if that was annoying or not. They were probably booked on Friday and Saturday, but those were the days that were most likely to have better entertainment. If he could snag them a reservation, it meant they wouldn't have to wait forever to get a table.

Hell with it, he'd see when the first Saturday night he could get them a reservation was.

Steve paused his game, watching Bucky set the tablet aside in favor of the phone. "Here in town?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, dialing the club's number. As he expected, they were booked pretty solid for a few weeks. That wasn't good enough, so he threw out the weight of his name, something he'd never really had cause to do, not in a situation like that, and was surprised to see it work. Once he'd recorded the date and time into his calendar, he hung up. "You know, it's kinda disgusting how a person can be so important that they kick other people out of line that were in front of them."

Steve had gone back to his game. "And yet you took advantage of that anyway."

Bucky shrugged. "I'm kinda ashamed of it, but yeah. And that is a big ghost thing you're carrying around."

Steve didn't look over, clicking away at the buttons on his controller. "Yes, yes it is. I'm finally at the dungeon boss. So it sounds like you're going out this Saturday?"

"Yeah," Bucky said, texting Maria the time and date. "Seven of the clock, this Saturday. Early enough for supper, late enough to not have to wait forever for any star shows they might have. I'll let you know if the place is any good, if you were thinking about taking Sharon."

"I might," Steve said, flinging the giant ghost into a wall of spikes. "I never felt comfortable in places like those."

Bucky looked from the TV to Steve. "Steve? That's because you usually had to leave because the cigarette smoke made you have an asthma attack."

"Thanks for reminding me of that," Steve said, managing to give him a dirty look without looking away from the TV.

"You're welcome," Bucky said. "My point is, you might enjoy the place more now that you don't have to worry about asthma attacks. And it's not like you can even legally smoke inside anymore, anyway."

Steve didn't answer at first, scowling mightily at his game, before sitting back. "And on behalf of asthma sufferers everywhere, I thank the government for passing those laws."

"Too bad it came too late for you," Bucky said, returning to playing the completely unhelpful peanut gallery.

He realized a problem, thankfully before Saturday. He had precisely two dress shirts, three ties, and one pair of nice slacks, all of which he'd worn in any combination since dating her. It might be nice to not look the same all the time, like that teacher who wore the same outfit for school pictures every year for thirty years. Or however long it was.

After finding out from Maria just how nice was 'nice', Bucky realized that not only did he need more nice clothing in general, but she was wearing a style from his day to fit in at the club. Which meant he _really_ needed to find something to wear to go with her. He wasn't about to make his lady stand out in an uncomfortable way by making them look mismatched. He was more of a gentleman than that.

Fortunately, there was pretty much nothing you couldn't find in Manhattan except maybe a Wal-Mart, and that included vintage clothing stores.

When did he become vintage?

Damnit.

Even though they were far from a pair of teenage girls who had to critique each other on cut and color choices, Steve offered to tag along once Bucky had informed him such a place existed. "I need nice clothes too," he'd said. "I'm in the same dire straits that you are."

"Good, I have someone to bitch to about how things don't fit now that my shoulders are two different sizes," had been Bucky's reply. Steve's answer to that was an eyeroll and a long-suffering sigh.

"Good lord," Steve said, eyeing a price tag on a pair of men's slacks designed to their era. "Even accounting for inflation, these pants are about ten times more expensive than anything I could've bought back then."

Bucky peered past Steve's shoulder at the price tag. "Yeah, I couldn't've afforded those either. This is top line stuff."

"Do either of you gentlemen need any assistance?" a floor saleswoman asked, walking up behind them.

Steve glanced over his shoulder. "Hm? No, we're fine."

"Those are a good choice," the saleswoman said, persistent and not leaving. What, did she think they were shoplifters she had to aggressively sales pitch at? "That style became popular at the start of World War II, when restrictions went into place and rayon became a common material to make clothes with."

Bucky looked at Steve. "Do you wanna tell her or should I?"

"Your way might be mean."

Bucky glanced at the confused saleswoman. "I am nice to ladies, I'll have you know," he retorted, then turned a bit, holding out his hand. "James Barnes. This is Steve Rogers."

The woman stared, then turned bright red and wide-eyed, belatedly taking Bucky's offered hand. "Oh my god! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't recognize you! You know this better than I do I guess, don't you? If you have any questions about what we have, that's something I can definitely help you with. We just got a shipment in this morning, and I put everything out." She looked like she was trying really hard to be useful to make up for her perceived previous blunder.

Bucky didn't think it was much of a blunder. People weren't exactly easily recognized from behind, after all. "Thank you. We'll look for you if we need you." _Take the hint, lady._ He wasn't comfortable with a salesperson standing over his shoulder while he tried to decide if a pair of pants in a style that he hadn't worn in decades would fit or not.

She nodded, assured them once more that she was available if they needed her, then wandered off, although Bucky suspected that she might not have wandered far. As long as she wasn't breathing down their necks.

Bucky stared as Steve pulled out a pair of grey slacks. "What is it with you and grey? Don't do grey, grey is boring, grey is what you _always_ wore. Don't you have any sense of variety?"

"Grey was about the only color I knew for certain what it looked like," Steve argued. "I'm used to it."

"And you can see colors now, Steve," Bucky said. "Use that imagination of yours to be a bit more creative than grey."

Steve pointed to the slacks in Bucky's hand. "Uniform brown? And you say I have no imagination? You have absolutely no room to talk."

"Hey, I looked good in that uniform," Bucky said. "Fine, point taken. Take your grey and go find the fitting rooms. Heathen."

"Thanks for the permission, Sergeant," Steve said, shoving at Bucky's shoulder as he walked away.

"Kiss off, _Captain_," Bucky called after him, then muttered under his breath "jackass."

Despite the squabbling, Bucky thought they both walked away with good choices and finally some nice clothes for their closets. Both had been fairly minimalist in that regard. They were taken men with regular dates, it was time to fix that. Their ladies deserved them looking good.

And thank everything holy that Steve added some goddamn color to his wardrobe. It took some convincing, mostly in the form of mocking until Steve gave in just to prove Bucky wrong. It was a tactic that never failed to work, even though Steve had to know that he was being played like a violin.

Steve, of course, had pointed out that Bucky's every day wardrobe consisted of shades of grey and black, and that Bucky was a hypocrite for being critical of Steve's clothing choices. Bucky answered that with a one fingered salute.

With nice clothes now in his closet, all that was left was to wait for Saturday.


	2. And Then The Fight Started

Saturday came around, and Bucky fussed with his clothes, fussed with his hair, fussed with his appearance in general. He was taking his girl to a place fashioned after the supperclubs he went to as a young man, he wanted to impress her. His hair was wrong though. He wasn't about to cut it, but it bothered him. Having it pulled back would have to do. He couldn't be perfect.

On his way to the door, after making sure he was armed and his Beretta was well concealed, he stopped and faced Steve. He took off his hat and bowed, arms out in an exaggerated flourish. "Don't wait up for me," he said with a smirk.

Steve rolled his eyes and waved him away. "Go pick her up before you're late, jackass."

Sporting a wide grin, Bucky was happy to obey that order, heading down the hall to pick up Maria. He felt good. Like time had rewound itself. The only thing that really reminded him that he wasn't picking up a girl back before the war was the lack of physical sensation in his left arm. It almost unnerved him if he paid attention to it.

But hell, that didn't matter. Hydra didn't matter. The decades didn't matter. What mattered was that he was about to spend a wonderful evening with an equally wonderful lady that he was actually trying for something long term with. He'd never had a girl in his life that had made him want that. Maria was special. And he wasn't going to ruin that by being late.

He waited at her door after knocking, wondering idly how she might've reacted if he'd brought a gift, flowers or something, but he had a feeling she probably wasn't the flowers type. She might be, though. He'd ask her for later reference.

The woman who answered the door took Bucky back even more to the old days. Maria had her hair done up in the elegant curls that he remembered, in a dancing gown in a deep purple with lavender trim, material gathered over her breasts and at her waist, her calf-length skirt loose, and it'd behave perfectly in an underarm promenade.

He had to remind himself to breathe. "That is a helluva dress," he said. "It looks good on you."

She smiled, raising one eyebrow. "Which was the effect I was going for. I'd say the same about you, but you're not wearing a dress."

"I wouldn't pull it off as well as you do," he said. "I almost feel under dressed with that dress."

She tilted her head to one side, looking at him like she clearly didn't buy that bullshit. "Are you fishing for a compliment? I'll give you one. You look stunning. Now, are you going to escort me like I know you want to, or am I walking ahead of you?"

He laughed, offering her his arm. "You know me too well, Maria."

Her door locked behind them as she took his arm. "I'm learning," she said.

The Ink and Paint Club was in Midtown, not terribly far from the Tower. Close enough that both Bucky and Maria agreed that it could be walked to. The weather was mild, warm enough for her to wear only a thin overcoat over her shoulder-sleeved dress, and cool enough that he wasn't cooking in the layers of his suit. Perfect weather for what he hoped would be a perfect night.

The host was exceedingly professional when Bucky gave him his name for his reservation. Celebrities probably went to the club all the time, another one coming in was no big deal. Without a shred of reaction beyond what Bucky considered to be good customer service, the waitress they were handed off to took them to their table right against the stage, gave them menus, offered drinks.

Scotch for him. Maria chose rum, not of any fruity flavored variety. Not what he'd expect from a woman, but Maria was far from a conventional woman, and Bucky's idea of what a woman 'should be like' was a bit outdated. With the women in his life now, and with Peggy's influence once upon a time, that notion was getting knocked out of his head.

Maria looked around. "This place really is like the movie," she said. "The only thing it needs are the toons."

"I'd say that might be out of reality's ability to produce," Bucky said, taking in the feel of the place. "But I have stopped thinking anything's impossible."

Maria made a quiet noise of agreement. After a moment of silence, she spoke up, drawing his attention away from the club itself. "I take it this place is shaking loose some memories?"

He blinked, turning his head to look at her. "Hm? Oh, yeah, it is." He sat back in his seat slightly, taking off his hat and hooking it on the back of his chair. "I haven't been to a place like this since before I was deployed to England. Some good times in those clubs." He smiled at her. "What about you? This invoking childhood memories of watching that movie?"

Maria took in a breath, studying the club. "A bit." She looked back at him. "Mostly it's making me think that it makes you happy to be here. Which makes me think we might have to make a regular date of coming here."

That brought a smile to his face. "You know, we don't have to only do things that make me happy. You being happy with something is good too."

She looked off to the side as if lost in thought. "I never had much preference when it came to where I'd like to go on a date, or how I'd like to dress, beyond comfortably. Even before I graduated college and was still dating, I didn't have much preference. So what I want is what makes you smile, as long as it doesn't make me uncomfortable." She glanced down at the floor. "We might have to have a discussion about these shoes, however."

Bucky laughed. "They're negotiable. I'll make a deal with you." He sat forward, folding his arms on the table. "I'll pick out date locations, how fancy to dress. But you tell me immediately if you don't like what I've picked out, and it'll never happen again."

"Deal," she said. "Now order your food."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a wide grin and a teasing tone. He was somewhat disappointed to see that the menu was one hundred percent modern. Sure, there was a lot of overlap, but one thing that stood out to him the most was that there were a lot of dishes with chicken that were actually cheaper than the beef selections.

Apparently, these people had never heard of the rationing in the war time.

He chose not to comment on it; the club was based more on a fictional club from a fictional movie, set roughly in the time period he remembered. It wasn't actually trying for the 1940s feel to that extent.

After the waitress had arrived and taken their orders, they turned their attention to conversation, although the conversation stayed about their surroundings.

"So how often did you take dates to clubs like this?" Maria asked, hands folded under her chin.

Bucky studied her, wary. That was a potentially deadly question. "Not as many as you probably think," he said. "I preferred double dating with Steve. I was always trying to find a girl for him that wasn't going to be put off by his ailments and size. Never did really find anyone. But he couldn't stay long in places like this. The cigarette smoke aggravated his asthma. I went on dates with just a lady and I a couple times to an old club that was called The Twist And Screw. And yes, it was as trashy as you're probably thinking."

Her eyebrows traveled upwards. "I didn't take you for the sort to enjoy that kind of place."

He shrugged. "Most of that was in my college years up in Massachusetts. Kids get out of Mom and Dad's homes and do things they wouldn't have otherwise. I wasn't so bad, honestly. Just seeing what was out there. Decided that place wasn't for me. I prefer places that don't practically have a brothel upstairs. Just a personal quirk, you see."

That answer seemed to please Maria. "Good. They're not exactly my thing, either."

Bucky decided that the subject needed to be changed. "So how did you find out about this place?"

"I was searching for supperclubs in Manhattan," she said. "I wanted to see what they were really like. It was the top result." She smiled. "I guess the kid in me couldn't resist getting a chance to see a place from my childhood."

"Speaking of seeing a place from your childhood," Bucky said, "if Disney didn't finance this place, how did the woman who runs it afford to buy rights for it? And open it in Manhattan of all places? That's not a small amount of dough she'd need."

Maria looked towards the bar, and Bucky's gaze followed hers to see their waitress bringing their drinks over. They both said a quiet thank you, then returned to their conversation once she'd left earshot.

"Her name is Céleste Lachapelle," Maria said. "She's the daughter of Aldéric Lachapelle. He's a famous art collector. Found a Monet original and got rich selling it. He went into the business of restoration. She worked for him for awhile, then opened this place. I'm not sure what sort of legal play it required to get the rights to open this place without getting sued. I'd imagine that her lawyers were very good at what they did."

"You did your research," he said, impressed.

She smiled, a faint quirk of her lips. "I don't like going into unknowns."

"And yet, you go on dates with me," Bucky said. "Because having two Avengers out and about together can't possibly attract an unknown."

"I see you like to live dangerously, challenging the world."

"Life's no fun otherwise."

Topics shifted. Tony was going to be leaving in two weeks for California. He was working on things with Bruce and Bucky, but Pepper still had a company to run, so she had already gone ahead, leaving Tony and Junior to catch up. And naturally, Junior was allowed into the thinking and plotting room, otherwise known as the penthouse. And no work got done with her around.

"Three grow men completely wrapped around a tiny cat's paw," Maria said, shaking her head. "It's amazing the power of a cute and fuzzy animal."

"Never underestimate it," Bucky said. "I'm actually thinking of inflicting one on our apartment. Junior might be enough for us right now, though. I don't have to clean her litter box, and it makes me laugh to think of Tony having to do that."

Maria grinned, laughter in her eyes. "It's certainly something I wouldn't normally think he'd do. But he's so taken with that cat."

"I did not expect that when I offered her to Pepper," Bucky said. "I figured she'd be more Pepper's than Tony's."

"The cat had other plans," Maria said. She paused whatever else she might've been about to say when the waitress appeared with their food. They thanked her and waited until she'd left and they'd had a chance to sample their food before resuming talking.

"It's not bad," she said, cutting another piece of her salmon. "I prefer your cooking, though."

"Now you're just flattering me."

She looked at him with some measure of annoyance that he wasn't prepared for. "Bucky, I don't flatter people. I speak the truth. I genuinely prefer eating the food you prepare. Not owning a restaurant or doing anything to make your cooking famous doesn't detract from its quality. Nor from the enjoyment I, and our friends, get from eating it. Humility doesn't become you."

He was left speechless for a count of ten, staring at her, not quite sure he heard what she said. After that tenth count had gone by, he attempted to find some words. "It's not- no, humility's never been my strong suit," he said. "I just didn't judge my cooking quite that high. I'm good, I know I am, I didn't realize I was that good. That's all."

"Now you know," Maria said, taking another bite.

Bucky happily embraced another change of topics. Bruce had Tony and Bucky helping him design a new medical scanner, one to replace the MRI machine. "There was a new one designed last year," he said. "More open, not so panic inducing, works for bigger patients. But Bruce wants one that's hand held, see if we can't find a way to localize the scan to a specific spot. It'd be smaller, faster, easier to use. And if we can pull it off, it could be used on a body part distant from another body part that has metal in it. Like scanning the soft tissue in a wrist of a person with a cochlear implant."

"Or a mercenary with a metal arm," Maria added, lifting one eyebrow.

Bucky shrugged. "It was an off-handed comment about me that shoved us in that direction, yeah, but my example is probably more common than my situation." Then he grinned. "Besides, if Bruce wants any scans on me, it's probably a CT scan of my brain to make sure it's not imploding, and my arm wouldn't pose a risk for that."

"I'm sure your brain is fine," Maria said. "I would think this has been thought of before, though."

"It has been," Bucky admitted. "One group asserted that their work with terahertz sensors in carbon nanotubes could work to replace MRIs, but that's a bit ambitious. That technology uses radiation that only penetrates a few microns into the tissue. Bruce has looked in that direction before, but we're mostly focused on keeping the magnetic imaging, just narrowing its field to a specific area of the body, rather than a full body scan. It'd make diagnosing other problems in patients with cochlears or pacemakers easier. CT scans aren't sufficient in a lot of those cases, and x-rays don't show soft tissue."

"You've gone from a weapons designer to a medical imaging designer." She seemed amused by this.

"Not entirely," Bucky said. "I dabble in a bit of everything, that's just the project that Bruce has asked for my help in. Being a chemical engineer means I can work in a lot of fields. Chemical engineers can basically work in whatever field we want. Pharmaceuticals, health care, microelectronics, whatever we want. I still design some stuff, but I never approach Tony about making any of them. He's told me to do that, but I know he doesn't really like weapons being manufactured by his company."

"If he's offered, then he's comfortable with it," Maria pointed out. "He weaponized the Iron Man suit, after all."

Bucky looked down at his food, not moving to take a bite, letting the emotions the subject brought up coalesce themselves into a reply. "Steve and I kinda messed up with him. I don't like asking him for favors."

Her expression made Bucky think that this wasn't entirely news to her. "I've noticed Pepper giving you a bit of the cold shoulder. And Tony seems to try too hard sometimes. Is it none of my business, or may I ask what happened?"

He poked at his chicken. Too much chicken in that place. "You know about Howard and his wife."

"I do. Hydra killed them."

Bucky let out a slow breath. "Kinda glad to hear you say it that way. We didn't tell Tony when we first went to him for help repairing my arm. I didn't like it, but I wasn't really in a place to be able to handle telling him, and I was in enough pain at the time that Steve decided to skip the boy scout routine and just didn't tell him. I trusted that Steve knew what he was doing and that he'd take care of it."

He set his fork down, disgust at himself and guilt mingling with his words. "Turned out 'taking care of it' was that we just kept our mouths shut and hoped it never came up. And then he found out from the media over a year later. Neither Tony nor Pepper are happy with us. The only reason we're getting a second chance is because they would've done the same if positions were reversed. I'm not sure who's angrier at us, Tony or Pepper."

"I would suspect Pepper," Maria said. "You've had more opportunity to rebuild a solid foundation of friendship with Tony by working with him. You rarely see Pepper. I couldn't guess where Steve stands, but I would be very surprised if Tony hasn't forgiven and let go."

A half a smile formed on his face. She was right, she always was, and he liked listening to that pragmatic wisdom, the way she said it, and the convinction she spoke with. It was part of what made him want something long term with her, something he'd never wanted before.

"Well, I guess sharing drinks over science is a good bonding ritual, so yeah, probably. I need to get Steve around him more. Maybe he'll have the same luck. And we both owe Pepper a few million "I am sorry"s written on the chalkboard still."

"Did they really do that when you were in school?" she asked, slightly steering the conversation away from a touchy subject.

For which he was grateful. "Oh yeah. There was also the whole sit in the corner thing and swats on the fingers and ass with a switch or a ruler. School was brutal in my day."

Her face was one of sympathetic disbelief. "I can't imagine how hard my father would've come down on the entire school district if one of my teachers had so much as touched me. Or any of us."

"If he's anything like my father, like a ton of bricks, I'd say," Bucky said. "My father never approved of anyone but him and Mom getting to administer physical discipline. It was one thing to fear our parents when we messed up, it was another to not feel comfortable at school because of it. But Dad had a good degree in biology, learning was like praying to him. And he wanted it to be that way for us kids. Hard to learn when you're too busy wondering what the teacher's going to do to you for protecting the sick and scrawny kid on the playground from bullies."

"Steve?"

Bucky tilted his head back with an exasperated smile. "Almost every damn day. Kids are assholes. I'm surprised Steve managed to make it to adulthood sometimes."

"He had a good guardian angel running around to keep up with him."

That got him to lift his head and stare at her like she'd just said the Pope was actually a pagan. "Did you just call me an angel?"

She smiled, her eyes full of laughter. "Maybe not an angel. Just a frustrated shadow."

"Very frustrated." He picked up his fork again. "So what about you? What've you been up to? You never tell me what you do for Stark Industries."

Maria seemed to hesitate. "I'm not sure how much I can tell you," she said. "What we're working on will change some views that society holds on certain subjects. It's not something that can be thrown out into conversation easily." She looked around. "At least not in public."

"So I should probably be asking Pepper or Tony," he said. At her noise of agreement, he nodded once. "Does this fit in with the energy business or the medical toys we're working on in R&amp;D?"

"No, not quite," Maria said. "We're creating another focus for the company. I can't say more, not without permission from Pepper. I don't doubt she'd give that permission to tell you. Maybe not Steve, if only because him trying to keep a secret doesn't always work out well when he's around someone who can't know that secret a lot."

"Sharon?"

"For the moment."

"For the moment?"

Maria motioned around with her fork, chewing her food. Right, public.

So whatever Tony and Pepper had recruited Maria on, it was something the government wasn't going to like. Given how Pepper had Maria working heavily on whatever this is, he had a feeling it might've had something to do with SHIELD's destruction. He could make a couple guesses, but there wasn't much point in speculating until he'd talked to Tony or Pepper and gotten the information from them, or permission for Maria to explain it.

"Well, for the forseeable moment, she's around him almost more than I am these days. Speaking of them, though, some interesting gossip, if you don't mind the traditional sort."

Before she could do more than lean forward to hear better, a woman with blonde hair and brown eyes that almost reminded Bucky of Sharon, passing for a cousin, perhaps, walked up to them. "I don't mean to be interrupting your meal," she said. "I'm Justine, I'm the manager here."

Something about her tone made Bucky wary. She was holding a professional expression, but she sounded nervous, her voice had the slightest of quivers. Her hands were fidgeting. There was a trace of sweat on her brow. It was possible that she was just overheated- maybe she'd been in the kitchen recently and was sensitive to the temperature back there. But that was being hopeful.

"Did we do something wrong?" he asked.

"No, no, not at all," she said, swallowing tightly. More signs of nerves. She lowered her voice, almost to a whisper, just barely audible over the noise from the other patrons and the noise coming from behind the curtain on the stage their table was pressed up against. "You're James Barnes, as in the Winter Soldier?"

Oh Christ. He probably wasn't welcome and she was afraid to confront a known assassin and mercenary on it. "I am," he said, keeping his tone level.

She sighed, her shoulders relaxing and her hands shaking even more. "Good, good. We have... a slight problem. There's some men that entered through the delivery door, they're carrying-"

Several shots rang out; Bucky had a half second warning beforehand from the fear on Justine's face as she looked up. With the bullets already fired, even he couldn't move fast enough to shove the manager to the ground before three solid shots hit her in the chest. He and Maria both ducked under their table, backs against the stage as the sounds of several automatics fired overhead.

"Guns," he said between breaths, quick with the unexpected burst of adrenaline. "They were carrying guns."


	3. Where'd You Buy That? Acme?

There were no sounds of demands being made, just a few more gunshots until a peek out from under the table cloth proved that everyone had dropped to the ground and were screaming, hands over their heads.

Good move, mundanes.

Just to be safe, Bucky grabbed his cutting knife off the table before he ducked back down. "Two gunmen up on the back part of the stage," he whispered.

"I hear one on the stage closer to us," Maria added, motioning to the runway. She didn't seem surprised by the knife suddenly in his hand. Helluva woman.

Bucky nodded in agreement. "I saw one at the bar. The fuckers have uzis. Who carries those around anymore?"

"Do you really want a woman to make a tiny penis joke?"

"Not really." He looked at her. "Please tell me you're armed."

She got a grim look on her face and lifted her skirt to her thigh, showing of a nice Beretta. Different make from his, but Berettas were good guns regardless.

He ran his metal hand over the lower part of his face, thinking. "I'm not hearing any demands. Their ringleader must be-"

He was cut off when the overhead and stage speakers that had once played atmosphere music crackled briefly before a voice with an accent that Maria identified as Bosnian, if Bucky understood her silent remark correctly, began talking. "Just so that nobody attempts to upset our plans with the police, I must warn all of you that this building has explosives rigged to supports. Please hand over all cell phones and keep silent. Once our demands are met, we will negotiate allowing you to live."

Shit. Explosives. Without a word, Bucky turned and started feeling along the wall they'd been sitting against. He heard the speaker there, there had to be an access door.

Maria was a smart woman with a better phone than what Bucky had, which proved very convenient when she turned and started scanning the plain wood for signs of the speaker. She ran her hand over the wall, then pointed at a tiny hinge that Bucky had overlooked.

Thank god.

While she kept an eye out for approaching men with guns wanting to collect their cell phones, Bucky slipped the hinges off the door and set it aside. He had no choice but to just bend the brackets holding the speaker to the wall and shove it inside. He motioned Maria in first.

After they were both in, Bucky grabbed the door he'd taken off and slipped it back into place, leaving the speaker cockeyed to it. If that door was opened, it'd be obvious that someone had gone through there, so they could only hope that nobody noticed the door in the first place.

They were quite far under the stage, back into the maintenance area, when Maria pulled out her phone. It was nicer than either of Steve or Bucky's phones, meant to do more than make calls and fiddle around on the internet. It was probably Avengers standard and he had to talk to Tony about getting one for him and Steve. It lit up, mapping out a complex line of electrical wires that attached to brightly lit spots. He peered over her shoulder, careful with the knife in his hand. "Please tell me they were bluffing about the explosives."

She frowned. "They weren't. Those spots are the explosives. Those lines are probably connected to the detonator." She looked at him. "First step then, disable those. How good are you at that?"

"I can do basics," he answered, then reached for the phone. She handed it over and he studied it. "These might be too advanced for me. Hydra didn't have much reason for me to disarm them. I can hook them up, but this might be up to you." He handed the phone back. "You can do that, right? Please say you can, or we might be in trouble."

"I can do it," she said, studying the phone. "There's two under here, one near our current location, and the other on the other side of the stage. I see two more near what looks like the kitchen." She stared at the phone. "These aren't placed to bring the entire building down, just blow out part of the first level. There's nothing near any support walls."

"If those weren't live, I'd call them on their bluff."

"It might still be," Maria said, holding up her phone into the darkness to her side. "There, there's one near that far wall. See it?"

Bucky looked over her shoulder. "I see it. Let's go take care of that. I'll watch your back."

She gave him an almost smile that wouldn't quite form, bogged down by the serious situation they were in. "You and your scary steak knife."

He followed her as she started to crawl towards the explosive, a slow process with her phone still held up in one hand to track their path and provide some light for them. "Anything in the Winter Soldier's hands becomes deadly."

"I was dangerous before you got your hands on me," she said, finally stopping and then squirming into an uncomfortable position by the loaded explosives. "Hold this," she said, handing over the phone.

Bucky obliged, taking the phone and holding the light over where she was working. He kept his ears listening for sounds of their Bosnian terrorists. He heard distant footsteps, but those were far away, muffled, and clearly not a threat.

"They've used TNT," Maria said. "Nowhere near enough to do any real damage. They're bluffing, or they're idiots."

Bucky glanced around behind him. "Let's hope idiots, because I have an idea."

Maria paused her work for a fraction of a second before continuing to disconnect the wires that made the system a closed loop. "I'm afraid to hear this."

"We get these disarmed, find the computer that attaches the lead line to the detonator. If we can get to it, we can reprogram your phone to act as the proverbial big red button. Whoever's holding the other one can hit it and nothing will happen, but they won't know that _our_ big red button won't work either."

"Think they'd call our bluff?" she asked then scooted back. "There, that one's disconnected from the system and disarmed."

Bucky handed her phone back over to lead them to the next bit of TNT that needed played with. "Do you think they'd take the chance that a former brainwashed assassin might just be crazy enough to hit that button for them? I don't have Captain America here to keep me in line."

Maria paused and looked back over her shoulder at him. "Says the man who's already well-known for being a bleeding heart for homeless vets."

"Okay, fine, nobody's seen me in a dangerous situation without him. There's a difference between a quiet homeless shelter and someone holding uzis at my head."

She considered that. "Your bluff might work then. But that relies on all of these being disarmed, so let's get to work."

The cables linking to the next batch of TNT led them to what amounted to the other side of the building and took an annoyingly long time to get to. Bucky grumbled about not having his HUD, it'd be easier for him to see. Maria mentioned he probably would also appreciate his uniform.

"It'd certainly be better than getting my nice suit dirty," he agreed. "I just hope our clothes aren't trashed after this. I don't like having to go to vintage stores just to get clothes from my twenties."

That actually got some amusement out of her, reflected in her tone. "You're only as old as you feel," she said. "If you went to the same place I did, we'll be giving them good business when we replace these."

"The Swingers?"

"I don't know of anywhere else in town. I don't buy clothes off the internet, I don't know they'll fit until they're delivered, and it's inefficient to buy them, wait for them, try them on, then have to send them back if they don't fit and find something else. Women's sizes are difficult enough to judge without adding a lack of fitting rooms to the mix." That was Maria, able to be perfectly logical and completely irritated by some of the benefits of the modern world at the exact same time. All while crawling towards a bomb to defuse.

Damn, he picked a good woman, if he did say so himself.

"Maybe you can take Sharon there," he said as they finally got to the next bomb. "Steve would probably appreciate it."

"I might," she said. She went quiet when they reached the second explosion. He took the phone from her and gave her light. "Speaking of them, how are things going for them? Steve seems twitterpated still."

Oh that. Bucky cursed the terrorists for taking away how fun this bit of gossip was. "That's putting it mildly," he said. "I'll wait to tell you that bit of news until after you're not in the middle of disarming explosives that are less than a foot from our faces."

"That bad?" Her brow was furrowed in concentration, her tone distracted. She really knew what she was doing if she could spare even half the attention she had so far.

"Just disarm the bomb," he said, glancing behind him and listening for signs of someone else under there. Just how big of a crawlspace did this place need under the stage? Most of the place was empty, like the stage had been built to have a place to hide bodies or something. There were wires near the front of the stage that hooked the speakers together and up to a main broadcasting system, but this back area seemed to be there just for the hell of it.

There was a reason, he was sure; he wasn't a maintenance man in a supper club, there could be reasons that he simply didn't know. But a point to it or not, it was weird, creepy, and also convenient for trying to get around in what amounted to a crawl space to disarm explosives. Nothing to get caught up in, and no spare wires to try to sort through.

The silence coming from above was getting more and more unnerving. They were either too far away from the dining area to hear anything, or nothing of interest was going on. If that were the case, then the diners were suitably terrorized and the gunmen hadn't been forced to fire off any shots.

"Done," Maria said, her voice as hushed as it'd been the whole time they were under there and thank the universe for that. It hadn't been that quiet when they got to the first explosive. She reached for her phone and stared at it, tapping the screen. "The two in the kitchen are going to be difficult. There's going to be staff in there, and men with guns with them."

"Unless everyone got herded into the main room."

Maria looked at him, studying him as if considering that idea. "You might be right. They wouldn't want to keep themselves right next to the explosions."

"But they'd want them close enough to scare the patrons and staff when they go off, give the bad guys a puff of ninja smoke to get out through the delivery doors with whatever it is the bossman is negotiating for."

"And he'll be in the administrative offices. Those would probably be just off the kitchen down a nearby hall."

"Conveniently close to our next stop," he said. "I'm not sure if I should be happy that this may not involve guns in close proximity to civilians or worried that it seems too easy."

"Both."

That, he could agree with. They went silent again as they crawled back away from the front of the building, across the stage, and hopefully to an access door going inside from under the stage. Maintenance had to get in there _somehow_ to access the back fiddly bits of the speakers.

The crawl felt like being back in basic, back in the war, having to pull himself along his belly, a weapon held tight in one hand. There was a big difference between a steak knife and a good M1, but the memory was there, and it was helpful, focusing him instead of letting his thoughts wander. And it didn't require leaning on Hydra conditioning to get out of a hostage situation. That conditioning would end up with dead civilians. Hydra didn't care about bystanders. The Army did.

He motioned to Maria to let him go first once the cords attaching the explosions down there to the ones in the kitchen finally led to a door they could just see faint lines of light through. He was the bodyguard, she needed to be able to focus on finding and disarming the explosives, roles they both fell into easily.

Bucky pressed his ear up against the access door, listening for signs of life outside. Hearing none, he pulled free the hinges on the door. The only lock was on the outside, and it was either loudly pop the lock, sending it flying into the hallway where its noise might catch the attention of someone down the hall, or the whole door might rip off in his hand.

With the hinges gone, Bucky was able to pull the door away from the wall and set it aside, in easy reach to hold it where it belonged if someone was nearby when he crawled out to investigate.

The hall outside was white, a shade so stark that it was blinding, like looking at snow on a sunny day. But there were no signs of anyone. Down one side was an equally white door with a big red EXIT sign above it, and down to the other side, following the cables of the explosives, was a set of swinging doors. If that was the kitchen, that made that exit door the delivery entrance.

"Coast is clear," he said, pulling himself the rest of the way out of the access doorway and turning to help Maria out.

She stood and dusted off the front of her dress, then looked at Bucky. "I think the clothes have held up so far. Nothing a wash won't fix."

Bucky examined himself. "As long as I don't get blood on it playing bodyguard," he said. "Blood is such a bitch to get out."

The look Maria gave him was almost comically disbelieving. "You and Steve wash blood out of your uniforms all the time. I don't believe that it won't be easier to clean that outfit those uniforms. Come on, bodyguard, we need to get those other two explosives and the computer attached to them."

"Yes, ma'am, you're in charge."

"This is your idea. I merely fill a role that you can't."

"How about we call this a partnership?"

"I like that idea much better."

They fell into silence as they walked the hall, following cords that linked the explosives under the stage to the kitchen. Bucky was walking slightly ahead and to her side, his steak knife held at the ready, although its balance was awful. He missed his real knives. He hadn't realized that he'd need a silent weapon handy when he went on a goddamn dinner date. He made an internal promise to never challenge the universe with statements about finding trouble on the merits of being an Avenger again.

This was a promise he wasn't likely to keep, but for the moment, it occupied the back of his mind.

"These people have no idea what they're doing with explosives," Maria said, voice just above a whisper. "This is the stupidest set up of a loop of explosives I have ever seen. My phone's not picking up anything to say this is a bluff and there's not more somewhere else. Their set ups aren't enough to cause more damage than a firework and it's sloppy. They're idiots."

"Idiots with uzis and that scares me," Bucky said, voice just as quiet.

The kitchen doors drew closer. They stopped talking and slowed their pace, moving apart to stand one on each side of the hallway. Bucky worried that Maria had no silent weapon to use if someone they wanted dead came through those doors, but she turned him down when he offered the knife. That told him enough about her hand-to-hand fighting skills.

A peek through the windows showed nobody immediately visible, but that didn't mean much. Bucky held up a finger to her, telling her to wait there while he investigated. He crouched down, slowly opening the door beside him, and slunk in.

He could hear voices to his left- there was another set of swinging doors that looked to slam into a wall. If this place had the usual layout of nice restaurants, that wall split two ways, one leading to the bar, the other leading out to the dining area.

He heard voices out that direction, but nobody was in the kitchen.

Good.

He reached back through the door propped open against his shoulder and waved Maria to follow him in. They crept forward, Bucky with his knife held in his fist, ready to leave a serrated slice in someone's neck, and Maria with her phone, occasionally glancing at it as she started following the cables to the next set of explosives in line.

Bucky kept his back to her as he followed, watching for anyone to come through either that front door, or the doors they just came through. Things seemed silent so far. That made him even more paranoid.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her come to a stop by an oven, so he held his ground behind her, switching his knife to his right hand and dropping one knee onto the ground. "They put one in an oven?" He looked over his shoulder at her and the rig up. It wasn't quite _inside_ the oven, but close enough. If it were more powerful than Maria was reporting, it might blow the oven out and set the electric bits in the wall on fire. Because an electric fire would be perfect for burning a place to the ground.

What exactly were these guys doing? It was obvious they didn't want to demolish the building, just mess up the club's location on the first floor. At best, they were idiots who didn't know how to create and arm explosives that would do any good. At worst, they were specifically trying not to make too much of a mess.

What was the fucking point of that?

He pushed those thoughts aside, focusing on the two sets of doors, counting heartbeats as Maria worked behind him. The sound of a voice grew closer through the doors leading to the front. Bucky motioned at Maria to stay silent, then headed towards that door, just down out of sight by a work counter. The door swung open, a single man entering. He held his uzi in a way that suggested he had no idea how to really handle a deadly weapon. His trigger discipline was terrible, and Bucky had a feeling that he didn't have the same excuse the Winter Soldier had when he did it.

Bucky waited until the man had walked a few steps past the counter on the other side before he slipped around and flung the steak knife at the man. The blade embedded itself in the back of his neck, dropping him to the ground. Bucky turned on his heels, ready to engage any other mercenaries that came through the door to investigate the sound of their comrade's body hitting the floor.

Nothing.

Maria stared at him through the gap under the counter, waiting. He nodded at her, and she went back to work. Bucky walked over to the man's body, staying crouched and mindful of the blood. The man was most definitely dead. Bucky grabbed the uzi and bent back the barrel with his metal hand, making the weapon useless for use. He wasn't fond of uzis to begin with, but even if he were, this was a mission that was going to require avoiding bullets zinging around. There were innocent people in the dining area and the kitchen held too much possibility for ricochet for Bucky's comfort.

One more check towards the front doors proved that nobody was coming, so he grabbed the man's comm off his ear and slipped it on, listening as he continued to crawl forward to find what the man was coming back for.

The language over the comm was unintelligible to him, and there was one voice that spoke more than the others that Bucky recognized as the voice over the loudspeakers, warning about the explosives. Bucky assumed that was the ringleader giving orders. Other than that, the comm was basically useless unless he cut into the conversation in what would probably be a stupid move. But he kept it on just in case while he traveled the length of the counter. The man had come back for something. The question was what.

He and Maria almost bumped heads as they both reached the end of the counter at the same time. The last explosive was just under it- again, a really poor spot for an explosive, god let these guys just be idiots and not clever in some impossible to understand way -and the laptop computer it connected to was three feet away on the lower shelf of the island.

"Phone," he whispered, holding out his hand.

She didn't argue, just handed it to him and went to work disarming the last explosive. Bucky tapped around on the laptop, looking for the response signal the computer would respond to when the detonation button was pushed. It took him a bit of fiddling, but he found it, changed it, and copied the new signal to Maria's phone.

"New red button?"

He looked over at her just in time to see her finish disarming the last bomb. He nodded in response, then took off the comm and held it out to her. "Can't tell what language that is. Think I know which voice the boss is."

She took the comm and put it on, listening. After a few seconds, she shook her head and took it off. "I'm pretty sure that's Bosnian but I can't understand it. I don't even know the language well enough to be a bad tourist there."

Bucky took the comm and stuffed it in his coat pocket. "They know English, we'll get them talking when we find the boss." He held up the phone. "Let's go show him our new big red button."


	4. Alan Rickman Would Call You Weak

They immediately found a problem. They had no idea where the owner's office would be, assuming she was even in there. They wouldn't have to go through the kitchen to get to them- even if there _was_ a back way out of the kitchen, which there didn't seem to be, typically offices didn't require going through the kitchen and having to wear a hair net every time someone went back there.

Which meant there had to be an entrance through another 'employees only' door, and god knew where that might be. Probably right where the other gunmen were. Which were just something that Maria and Bucky didn't want to deal with. There were civvies out there. Getting spotted and having to engage would just be an unnecessary fuss.

"Know what would be good right now?" Bucky said, still staying a cautious library voice level, as they made their way back across the kitchen to where their now-dead man had entered from.

"I can imagine many things that would be good right now," Maria said.

"So can I, and most of them involve _not_ being in a hostage situation," he said. "But right now, I'd settle for a distraction that's not going to bring a rain of bullets at our heads. The way to that office has to be just around the corner and I don't think we can get away with sneaking by."

A few seconds ticked by while he racked his brain on how to get to that office without someone getting killed, a thought process that died as Maria settled against the wall next to him. She held out her hand. "Comm, phone."

Whatever she was up to, he wasn't sure, but he obliged her, handing her the phone and the comm piece from his pocket.

She didn't say anything about what she was doing while she played with her phone, a process that took about thirty seconds before she handed both back to him. "Put on the comm. The phone's translator program is synced to it now. It may not be the best English you'll hear, but you'll be able to follow what's being said."

"Helpful," he said, pulling on the comm piece. She was right, the English didn't translate quite right, mostly problems with verb tenses, but he could understand what was going on.

"Boss, there are a cop outside," one voice said in his ear.

The voice of the man who'd used the overheads before answered, in what probably _was_ English. "If he asks about the noises, say there was a malfunction in the radio system. Not gunshots."

He tapped the silent button on the comm and looked at Maria. "There's a cop outside. Boss guy just told one of his cronies to tell the cop the reported noises were electrical problems in the radio system. If this cop is at all smart, he'll take their word, and then call for back up behind their backs. Any cop that doesn't figure out that something must be going on when a popular supper club in Manhattan has its doors locked on a Saturday night at dinner time is an idiot and should be fed his badge with ketchup."

"That's our distraction, then," Maria said.

He frowned, trying to figure out what he was missing in her statement. She wasn't stupid, she wouldn't suggest that just one man talking to a cop outside would be enough of a distraction for them to both get out of the kitchen. "That still leaves the others in the dining area."

"Which is where I come in. I want that cop to scream for that back up. Having law enforcement suddenly drawing guns on them would keep them busy and allow you to get to the office. I'll go out and encourage law enforcement to call for that back up faster than their suspicions can."

"No," he said quickly. "You're not endangering yourself. You are not a distraction."

The look she gave him was one that he was sure had been seen by SHIELD agents many times, that of a no-nonsense high ranking agent who didn't like her orders questioned by anyone but her superior. He looked for fear, for worry, for any sign in her eyes that he might use to keep her from doing this. But he saw none, and when Maria set her mind to do something, she was going to do it, and all of his Barnes stubbornness was going to mean jack and dick.

"I will be fine. It will be easier for you to convince the man in charge that you're crazy enough to push that button if I'm not there with you. If you're alone, then he can't call your bluff based on there being someone you care about around here. I will go out, I will make a clean shot at whoever I have a better angle for. A law enforcement officer will not mistaken that for an electrical problem. There will be back up, and quickly, and the resulting stand off will keep the terrorists busy."

"And you held hostage and in as much danger as the civilians will be once bullets start flying," Bucky said. "You're one person with one gun, you can't take down all of them. You are not fast enough to dodge bullets, and you're not wearing any sort of protection against them."

"It won't be for long," she said. "When you convince their leader that you're serious about detonating the place, have him tell the others to drop all their weapons. If you do it fast enough, they won't have a chance to harm anyone. I can get free and return to the delivery door and get out before law enforcement can get more coverage around the building."

He took a deep breath, considering the plan and hating himself for realizing that if timing was on their side, she was right, it was a good plan. "That will only work if I can convince the head that his button doesn't work, and he can't risk that mine does. And what if he knows the explosives are a joke? He won't care if I hit that button. We don't know if those were bluffs or not."

"It's a chance we'll have to take. You're armed, and you're just as deadly when you're not. If those were bluffs and he doesn't respond to the threat of the explosives, you can threaten him other ways to get his men to drop their guns." She leaned forward to look past him at the doors that suddenly seemed uncrossable. "I know it's chancy. We could both end up dead, but you and Steve take that risk every time you take a job. Just because I'm not Steve doesn't mean I can't keep myself safe while I work in another part of the job from you."

He winced. She'd hit a nail pretty hard in his head; he wasn't trusting her to handle herself. And he couldn't entirely blame that on his affection for her. He was attached to Steve, more than her, and they risked each others' lives a lot. He was just being an old-fashioned sexist, something that had gotten him into trouble a couple times with Peggy by not trusting a woman without a man's protection. Old social norms were sometimes hard to break.

She could take care of herself.

"All right," he said. "You get yourself out of there as soon as you can. You'd better be at the delivery doors when I'm done scaring the shit out of the guy in charge."

She gave him a smile meant to be reassuring, but it just felt final to him. "I will be." She pulled her Beretta out of its holster on her thigh.

Bucky stood for just a few brief seconds, looking out the round window in the doors. No one seemed to be heading into the t-section area just outside the door. He crouched again. "We go out at once. You go right, the bar's that way. I'm taking the chance that the office is the other way. If it's not, we'll improvise."

"I've heard about your improvising," she said.

"Is that comforting or terrifying?"

"Both."

"Good." He pulled out his own Beretta, just in case things went wrong and that improvising was needed. "Ready? On three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

Go.

Bucky shouldered open the door, using his momentum to roll up back into a crouch going the opposite direction he'd been in. There was another 'Employees Only' door immediately to his left and he pushed through that. Behind him, he heard Maria fire off three shots, two more than she'd said. Damnit, woman. Shouts and gunfire followed and Bucky had to bite down the bile in his throat at the fear that one of those shots might hit Maria.

Once through the doors, he stood and broke into a run, pausing only to look into open rooms as he went by. There was the break room. Passed by a room with small lockers on top of each other; another employee room, likely for changing in and out of ties and jackets before and after shifts, parts of uniforms that didn't need to leave the building.

He hesitated at the door, the smell of powder strong in his nose. He drew his gun and stepped in, ready to shoot anyone that moved funny. He followed the pungent odor to a locker in the far back corner of the room. There was pale yellow powder on the lock, wrapped around the numbers and handle as if handled by someone trying too quickly to put in the correct combination.

With his metal index finger, he wiped off some of the powder and brought it close to his nose before withdrawing quickly. TNT powder. "Someone around here is very clever," he said quietly to no one, looking around for signs of life. He was now willing to bet that those bombs had been far more dangerous when they first entered the building. He tried to formulate a quick theory, but there was a clock in his head that started shrieking at him that Maria and the other hostages needed him to act quickly, so he abandoned the thought and left the room, running back down the hall.

Passed by the employee bathrooms. That actually made him wonder where the public ones were. He hadn't seen them. Too many bathrooms to have to clean. But the business was high priced and hoity-toity enough to have dedicated janitor instead of making the other employees set aside customer service to clean up after disgusting customers. So maybe not a bad thing.

There were a couple small offices; probably for the mid-level management, people who managed the books, handled customer complaints, handled employee issues, leaving the owner to deal with other parts of running a business. Whatever those were. Bucky didn't know and didn't care, just making notes of the use of rooms as he went by them on the off-chance they'd prove useful. They were otherwise discarded details.

There was one last door at the end of the hall, a sign on it saying 'C. Lachapelle' in the middle of the door. There, the owner's office. He paused outside the door, pressing his ear against the door, listening for signs that anyone was in there. There'd better be, or he'd have to go hunting and leave Maria in danger longer.

In his ear, he heard a lot of shouting in poor and broken English, frantic and poorly translated enough that he tuned it out. But he heard the bossman loud and clear, calling his underlings idiots for tipping off the cops. He said nothing about a specific woman being involved, although there was quite a bit of talk of threatening the patrons if the cops tried to make contact. Bucky hoped that Maria had managed to get out of trouble as soon as she'd caused it.

Now he just had to move fast enough to prevent a civilian casualty.

The voice in his ear he could also hear through the door. Good, he was in there. There was a woman's voice that accompanied the voice inside the office. "If this is the only threat you can be, my father will not give you the ransom you ask for."

"If he wants to not be responsible for the deaths of your customers, he will cooperate. This business is still wired to explode."

Oh good, an invitation for him.

Snapping the lock as he turned the handle, Bucky slipped in like a shadow, falling back on the Winter Soldier, the Hydra operative that had no problem eliminating anyone who stood between him and his contact. The dead stare of an assassin who knew nothing else.

He was greeted with a gun pointed at him. At the desk was a blond woman, the cold look she'd had very quickly melting into fear and confusion at the addition of another person. The man pointing the gun at him was pale enough to glow in the dark, sharp contrast to the dark hair, and the dark suit. What, did he think that terrorizing a supper club required him to dress up as nicely as the customers?

"Unless you are here to negotiate on Monsieur Lachapelle's behalf, I recommend returning to the dining hall," the man said.

Bucky looked at the gun as if it were a water pistol. It wasn't, and it was close enough to his face that dodging its bullet may not be possible. But he could move before the shot was fired, and reading the man's body language, he wasn't actually as used to using a dangerous weapon as he pretended. Bucky would see him moving to shoot before the man even knew he was going to.

Actually, why not just eliminate that potential threat now? Bucky was in motion before the mercenary could even think to pull the trigger, yanking the gun out of his hand and crumpling it with the mechanical hand, very much now exposed. See if this dumbshit didn't recognize him now.

Bossman pulled his hand away like he'd been bitten by a snake, fear in his eyes and his already pale skin managing to get a shade lighter, and when he spoke, his voice trembled, but Bucky had to give him the credit of at least trying to not sound terrified. "I didn't realize the Winter Soldier would put himself out in the public alone. Aren't you afraid of Hydra?"

"No," Bucky answered, and there was utterly no reason to not lie about that, or about the first issue. "Even assassins need to eat. I don't like being taken hostage."

Bossman glanced at the floor at his gun that looked like a mangled empty Coke can, and licked his lips as if they'd gone dry. "There are still explosives."

"Those ones you warned us about when your idiots started shooting like they were blind?" Bucky said. "I took care of that."

The way Bossman managed to pale yet another shade told Bucky that either he was a goddamn good actor, even in the face of a dangerous assassin, or he thought those explosives were strong enough to be a danger. Good. Whatever moron set those up had screwed him over.

"You disarmed them." That was a fear-driven statement.

"No." Technically he didn't, he just played watchdog while Maria did. Yet another lie Bucky had no problem telling. "Have you checked your detonator lately?"

Bossman's hand flew to his jacket's breast pocket, digging into it and pulling out a phone and staring at it. He looked desperate, must've been, because he started jamming his finger on the screen. He looked up at Bucky like Bucky just might start chewing on his head.

Bucky held up Maria's phone. Oh how he wanted to smile an evil smile at the man, but that wasn't the way the assassin did things. The assassin made you think that he'd do his job and not care who got hurt in the process. The assassin was ice. So he merely raised one eyebrow, challenging Bossman to call his bluff.

Bossman put up his hands in a placating manner. "You wouldn't destroy this place. That'd hurt your reputation."

"Hydra already did that," Bucky said, dropping his hand from holding up the phone, pretending to be prepping it to set off the explosives. Then he gave Bossman a steady look. "Captain American isn't here to hold my leash."

The woman had scooted her desk chair where she was sitting back into a corner, looking between the men, terrorized by the threats they posed. Or rather, that Bucky posed. Bossman had been thoroughly disarmed.

Bossman took in a deep breath. "What do you want?"

There, now they were getting somewhere. "There are police outside. I want you and all your underlings to go outside to greet them. And leave your weapons."

"They'll come for you too," Bossman said, desperation to get out of his current situation lacing his voice. "You're threatening to set off explosives."

How Bucky wanted to drop the Winter Soldier routine and call the man an idiot for having weak explosives and thinking that Bucky controlled big ones, but he wasn't going to show all of his cards. "Will they?" He pulled out his Beretta and pointed it at Bossman. "This would let you off easy. It's your only chance to get out if you don't want the place to blow on you."

Bossman may have been an idiot, or a bluffer that had insufficient supplies to make that bluff worth anything, but he apparently was smart enough to know when to tuck his tail and run. He held up his hands, taking care to try to get around Bucky to leave without getting a bullet to the brain. "We'll- yes, we'll disarm ourselves," he said, and Bucky could hear one last lie in that tone.

Bucky tapped the stolen comm on his ear. "I borrowed this. I'll be able to hear you and your men, so no funny shit. Get out."

Bucky didn't envy Bossman's position. But it was his own fault for trying to take people hostage. Especially taking the Winter Soldier hostage. Bucky didn't like being in that position.

Once safely around Bucky, or as close as he could be, Bossman made a break for the open door and ran out like the world's most famous Hydra weapon was going to chase him like some hellhound. Bucky let him leave, watching him carefully as he went down the hall of employee areas. When he'd left through the employees only door, Bucky returned his gun to its holster and put Maria's phone in his pocket.

The woman in the corner still watched him, pressed as far back against the back of her chair as possible. Bucky didn't make eye contact until he could hear that Bossman had taken the warning about not trying anything clever to heart. Once he was satisfied that the police could take care of things from there, Bucky took off the comm and tossed it on the desk. "Your place is clear," he told the woman. "You're welcome."

Not eager to get engaged with the police on the issue, Bucky turned and hurried down the employees only hall, slipped down behind the t-section wall, glancing over the wall just long enough to try to spot Maria. When he didn't see her, he swore to himself, but the fact that she wasn't visible but the mercenaries were and were heading towards the door told Bucky that she was probably safe and with the other diners. Not ideal, but better than dead.

She could take care of herself. And she'd promised she'd be meeting him at the delivery door, so while he still had a chance to get out before the police came in, he ducked into the kitchen and out through the door to the delivery hall.

He saw no sign of her at the door, and worry made a sick lump in his stomach and his adrenal glands to pump out more hormones to elevate his heart rate and his muscles so tense he swore they would snap.

A noise behind him made him jump about five feet into the air, give or take a few inches, and he whirled mid-jump, Beretta pulled out and ready to fire at whatever threat that noise represented.

The maintenance door to the stage slid open and Maria partly emerged from the darkness under the stage. She looked on edge as she pulled herself out from under the stage. "Bucky! Thank god."

Relief crashed in with a plethora of chemicals pounding through his veins as he put his gun away and helped her the rest of the way out and up from her hiding place. "Are you okay? You didn't get hur-"

She didn't give him a chance to answer, backing him against the wall and greeting him with a fierce kiss, with hands gripping his coat lapels like a lifeline. "You're safe," she said after she was forced to break the kiss to breathe. She was still breathless, her eyes glassy from fear and whatever had just ignited that kiss. Natural results of too much adrenaline and too much danger, and a need to touch and make sure that the other was real, that the bullets and hiding hadn't killed them or separated them.

His mind responded in kind, worry mixing with hormones as he pulled her tight against him and kissed her lips, her cheek, her neck where he buried his face. "I should be the one saying that, you're the one that went out there with a gun."

They stayed like that for several seconds as panic died but adrenaline remained high before the sounds of more police sirens approaching took their attention. Bucky grabbed her hand. "Come on, let's get out of here before our way out is blocked."

She entwined her fingers with his, her palms wet from sweat and shaking and now Bucky wondered what was causing that shaking. Her nerves against his hand lit his on fire and if they didn't have to get out before anything could interrupt them, he'd suggest that the smooth stone wall of the building was a fine place to sate the fear-driven desire.

But it really wasn't, especially not with cops coming their direction. So they ran, Maria's footsteps a dull thud instead of the click clack of high heels. She'd left her shoes somewhere back in the club.

They'd reached the Tower before they both felt they'd gotten far enough away to not get pulled into a police investigation. They leaned against the outside wall, breathing hard from the run, from fear, and hormones that were releasing smoke into the air between them. He'd never worked with a woman in a dangerous situation like that, not one he had the freedom to touch, to kiss, to be with. The chemical reaction was unexpected and he wanted more of it, just for that moment.

Maria didn't seem to mind when Bucky turned, trapped her against the wall and gave her a fiery kiss to melt nerves and leave a warmth in the lower belly that would ache to be satisfied. He wasn't going to invite himself to her apartment, but he wanted to. If she'd allow him to. The way she matched his fire, hands sliding into his jacket like she wanted to remove it right then and there said she just might.

He broke the kiss, not moving to let her out of his trap, hands on the wall on each side of her head. They should really at least get _inside._ "I'll take you home to your apartment," he said, giving her a chance to say no to anything more until they'd gotten their heads screwed on straight and discussed pushing into this territory in their relationship if she wanted.

It took a lot of will power to make himself do that.

"Only if you stay there with me," she said, voice low, breathing in uneven gasps. "Call Steve, tell him not to wait up for you."

"I was hoping you'd say that."


	5. Feeling Like A Million Bucks

It was four before they fell asleep, and ten before either of them got up. Bucky was up first, redressed into his pants and shirt, and headed to the kitchen. Maria didn't have any hot drinks but coffee, and she seemed to like hazelnut, as that was the only option. Despite not liking coffee that much, he wanted something warm to drink. It was part of his morning routine. And Maria might appreciate waking up to something full of caffeine.

Once the coffee was started- she had a coffee maker that actually worked praise everything -he checked on her. She was still asleep, or at least not yet ready to open her eyes and get up, so he took off with use of her bathroom.

It wasn't long before she joined him, dressed in fresh sleeping pants and a tank top that was almost too thin to be considered proper. She looked like she hadn't had enough sleep and didn't care. She was also walking a bit carefully, which made Bucky have to hide a smile behind his cup of coffee. After he was sure he wasn't going to make a lewd comment about sore muscles, he motioned behind him to the kitchen from his chair at her table. "I made coffee."

"I thought you didn't like coffee," she said around a yawn, passing by him to get a cup of her own.

"I don't, but you don't have anything else warm to drink." He looked back at her, watching her pour her coffee and add creamer. "Your toothpaste tastes just as disgusting, by the way."

She turned, raising her eyebrows. "I didn't pick it out for your tastes," she said.

"I know," he said, taking a sip of his coffee, the hazelnut only barely making it tolerable. "I was just saying that your toothpaste tastes awful."

"You seemed to live through it," she said, sitting down across from him. She took a sip of her drink and grimaced. "God, Bucky, you made it strong enough to kill a horse. Is this how you drank it in the Army?"

Bucky looked down into his cup. "I didn't think it was all that strong," he said, feeling a bit guilty. "I can make some more if that's too strong for you."

Maria shook her head, taking another drink. "It's fine. I've had it this strong before, but usually only when it's going to be a long few days with little opportunity for sleep."

He grinned at her. "Well, I could always stick around longer, help you burn that energy."

The smile she gave him over her cup was warm, like a fireplace to curl up next to, but it lacked the glassy eyed lust he'd seen last night. "I'm sure you could. But I have a few things I want to do today before I go back to work tomorrow." She set her mug down. "Besides, Steve might be worried if you stayed all day."

"I can text him," Bucky said. "He didn't sound worried last night when I called him in the elevator."

For a moment, all Maria did was smile at him, like maybe she was considering his offer, or perhaps something else all together on her mind. "You should go home to Steve today, Bucky. He's probably seen the news that something happened at the club last night, and if he doesn't think we were involved, then he's lost his mind. He deserves for you to be there to fuss over. You found trouble without him."

Bucky frowned into his coffee. "I know I did. But that doesn't mean I can't take a day to focus on someone else important to me. Steve spends a lot of time with Sharon, it's not like he and I are surgically attached at the hip anymore."

"Bucky?" Her voice was soft, but firm, and he looked up at her to see a gentle look on her face that he rarely saw there. "Any other time, I would likely say yes. But I know him well enough to know that he needs to see you safe and sound, and I'm not going to interfere in that. I don't want to be the center of anyone's world, and even if I did, it's not my place to make him share that with me. Not with what you two mean to each other."

For a moment, he thought his heart might drop into his stomach- her words almost sounded like a very odd break up. But her tone didn't match that. He sat back, studying her, taking in the quiet wisdom of her statement, and the sense in her eyes that she was happy with the arrangement she'd just put forth. "I hope you don't think that this means you're getting rid of me."

Her smile lit up, chasing away any clouds her words might've set in. "I know. I don't want to. I just don't also want to make Steve share his place with me."

"Even if I end up sharing him with Sharon?"

Maria took in a deep breath. "I don't think that will even come up. If Sharon tried to make you share that place, I think Steve would break up with her. You two have a very special relationship, anyone from the outside has no place standing in the middle of it. Not even Sharon or I."

He wasn't sure how to answer that, not directly, but her statement did remind him of something. "Speaking of Steve and Sharon..."

She leaned forward, elbow propped up on the table and chin resting on her palm. "That gossip?"

Before he even had a chance to speak, JARVIS cut in. "Miss Hill, Mister Barnes, there is an incoming audio call from a Céleste Lachapelle, requesting to speak to both of you. Should I accept the call, or tell her to call another time?"

They exchanged a look. Bucky shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

Maria nodded once in agreement, then glanced up as they all seemed to do when addressing JARVIS. "Connect the call on the overhead, please."

"Hello?" Céleste's voice held just a trace of a French accent, and she sounded a bit nervous. "Am I speaking to Miss Hill and Mister Barnes?"

"You are," Maria said. "What can we do for you, Miss Lachapelle?"

"I wanted to extend my thanks for saving my patrons and my business. You were both gone before I could find out what happened. I only knew that the Winter Soldier had chased off the mercenaries. After giving me a heart attack."

Maria frowned and looked at Bucky. "Did you mention me at all?"

Bucky shook his head. "No. Never said a word about being there with anybody."

"Mister Barnes's reservations had your name on it, Miss Hill," Céleste explained. "I assumed you assisted in some way."

"I had a hand in it," Maria admitted. She looked at Bucky, brows knitted together. "I'm surprised you're contacting us before the police." Good, fishing for answers.

"I did not tell the police you were here, and nobody believed Gissing when he tried to tattle."

"Gissing?" Bucky said, looking upwards before taking a sip of coffee. God, he wanted to have cocoa instead. It'd been so long since he last had coffee that his tolerance for it had gone even further down.

"That is the name of the man in charge of the mercenaries," Céleste said. "Marvin Gissing. He is the head of a Bosnian mercenary team. They're a small operation with a mediocre reputation. Worse now that they were chased off by seemingly no one."

Bucky set down his cup. "Never heard of them. What were they after?"

Céleste's voice took on a mournful tone. "A painting my father owns. The government of Qatar recently tried to buy it from him, but he turned them down. That painting is what Gissing demanded as ransom. I'm sure they were hired to look like they were sent by Qatar, but they were not. They were hired by my father."

Bucky's eyebrows shot up at that, and Maria looked just as surprised. "Why'd he do that?"

"Because he wants me to give up my club and go back to restoration work with him," Céleste said, and Bucky could practically hear a shrug in there somewhere. "He was never happy that I left the family business to open The Ink And Paper. He told me many times that I was his best, though I know that is a lie. He has many talented artists working in restoration for him. He's never liked it when I defied him, and it happens often."

"So your own father tried to blow up your club, killing dozens in the process, just to convince you to come back to work for him?" Maria sounded as confused as Bucky felt. "How did he figure that would work?"

"The explosions were supposed to be very powerful," Céleste said. "My father assumed that if my club was destroyed and people had died as a result, I would be willing to give up instead of rebuild. My father underestimated how much I love this club, and overestimated how talented Gissing and his men were. He's also a pathological narcissist."

Her tone shifted into a tone that Bucky suspected would be followed by evil giggling in normal situations. "As for the what happened with the bombs, I have some exceptionally loyal staff that Gissing's men forced into planting those bombs so they could time when they took the club hostage. My employees 'accidentally' did it wrong and got rid of much of the explosive powder in the bombs. I raised their wages."

"I wondered what was with all that powder in the locker room," Bucky said. "How'd they manage that? TNT usually comes as a solid, not a powder."

"As Michael put it; 'two words, cheese grater."

Bucky burst out laughing. "There's a way I never though to use one of those."

"And now you're going to laugh every time you use one," Maria said, amusement in her voice.

"Don't worry, I imagine it will become a tale that gets embellished as time goes on around here," Céleste said.

"Where are the mercenaries now?" Maria asked, only semi-shifting topics. "Does law enforcement have them?"

"All of them, as well as my father," Céleste said. "And I fully intend on pressing charges. But I felt you deserved to know why your dinner was interrupted last night."

"Well, it's nice not being in the dark," Bucky admitted.

"I would also like to offer a monetary compensation," Céleste said. The next words out of her mouth gave Bucky a heart attack and made him choke on his coffee. "I like even numbers, so I hope one million is okay. It's a quarter of the worth of the club."

Maria nearly spilled her coffee. "One mi- that's far too much, Miss Lachapelle," she said, sounding about how Bucky felt. A million damn dollars for what was by far one of Bucky's simpler jobs. Bucky wasn't sure he'd seen that much money in his life, at least not from one job.

"I would've paid far more in compensation to families and insurance if something had happened," Céleste said. "If not that, then what can I offer you?"

A glance at Maria proved she was likely of the same mind as what had popped into his head. "Set us up with dinner occasionally," Bucky said. "We liked the food."

"Done," Céleste said. "The table by the stage will be reserved exclusively for you. You're free to come in any time you like, and all food and drinks are free."

Maria looked up again, even though the speaker that JARVIS and calls spoke through wasn't visible on the ceiling. "Would it be all right if we sometimes brought Captain America and his girlfriend along?"

There was a sunny smile in Céleste's tone. "Absolutely. As long as having that many Avengers in one spot doesn't make anything try to blow up again."

"A legitimate fear," Bucky said. "Don't worry, we'll all be on our best behavior."

After another thank you, they said goodbye and the call was disconnected.

Maria shook her head. "A million dollars."

"Tony would've offered more," Bucky said, finishing off the last of his coffee.

"I know," Maria said, not done with hers. "But I would've turned him down, as well. We have a nice arrangement now, that's more than enough."

Bucky made a noise of agreement. "But since we have our heads screwed on straight again, I gotta ask you something."

"Hm?" She looked at him over her cup, waiting patiently for his question.

"How'd you manage to get away from the mercenaries before I got done scaring off their ringleader?"

Maria's eyebrows raised. "I hope you don't think that you and Steve are the only fast ones around here," she said. "This may come as a surprise to you, Mister Super Soldier With Ancient Views On Women, but we normal women can quick on our feet, too. Or did Peggy Carter not teach you that?"

Bucky winced. "She tried. I know, I wasn't trusting you like I should've. I've got conflicting views of women in my brain. I'm trying to get out of the old one."

She reached across the table and patted his hand. "It's okay, dear. I'll have you trained soon enough." She leaned back. "But since you asked, they never saw me. While you were slipping into the employees only area, I had already gotten down and back into the kitchen. That's why I decided to wait under the stage. I didn't want to take the chance that one of them had noticed my shots came from behind them and came looking." She gave him something of a contrite look that he wasn't sure was fully serious. "I'm sorry I scared you so badly when I opened the door."

"I wasn't the only one scared," Bucky said. "You latched onto me pretty quickly."

She studied him, her cup held lazily in her hand, her expression not quite as solemn as it had been earlier when she set the terms of their relationship, but still serious. "You also weren't the only one in there who wasn't certain what was going on with the other. I was scared for your safety. I couldn't hear anything going on. All I knew was that nobody was firing any guns, but that could've changed very quickly and I wasn't in a good position to tell if those shots would've come from the office areas, or the dining area. Silence isn't a good answer when you're asking God where your partner is."

His mind drifted with her words, pictured what he'd missed while he was pretending to be crazier than a shithouse rat. He'd never been in the same position, but sometimes as a sniper, it could get as frightening. It was easy to imagine her hiding in a small, dark place and listening for signs of anything, hoping the other person was safe. And he felt guilty about it. "Maybe we should've stolen a second comm and put it on a different channel so we could stay in touch."

She gave him an exasperated look. "Bucky, how would we have gotten another ear piece? We were lucky to have the one, and it was more important that you have it. If I _had_ gotten caught, they would've taken it right back and it would've made me a higher risk hostage. It worked out better this way. I can see you're feeling guilty, and you shouldn't. It worked out. We made a good team." When he opened his mouth to say more, she pointed her finger at him, taking a quick swallow of coffee before saying what she was cutting him off with. "Don't. At this point, you'd be just being silly."

Bucky didn't deny it. "All right, fine. I know. I like to chew on my liver sometimes a bit too much."

"You have reason," she said with a shrug. "But it's a reason you need to work through and set aside." She set her mug down. "My turn to ask you a question. Now that we know those explosives were supposed to be much more powerful, how'd you manage to convince Gissing that you were serious about hitting the detonator button? You would've been caught in the explosion."

"He's an idiot?" Bucky said with a shrug. "Probably figured I'd survive it. People like to think Steve and I can do things we can't. Although I could've survived, come to think of it."

"And the diners?"

"I just told him that Steve wasn't there to hold my leash. Let him think that the Winter Soldier still had some screws loose in his head. It was actually kinda insulting how fast that one worked on him."

She gave his hand another pat. "You have time to turn your reputation around."

"Yeah, I just gotta get Hydra out of the public mind. That'll take awhile."

"Hydra can't hold you forever," she said, and Bucky almost wasn't sure what to make of her tone. It lacked the flippancy her hand pat had shown, but it wasn't as serious as he felt it should've been with that statement.

Not really yet ready to show her how much Hydra was in his head still, not more than she already knew, he chose not to comment on it, but instead he made a point of investigating his empty mug, then stood. "All right, I was being chased out earlier, I'll leave you to your coffee in peace."

Letting the subject go for the moment, she set her mug down, watching him with a smile. "You're right, you were. Get home to Steve. You have more news to share with him now."

He set his mug in her sink. "And he'll just love it," he said, passing back by Maria to the bedroom to finish putting his clothes back on. He realized after getting dressed that his hat had been left at the club. Damn. Maybe it got saved by Céleste or one of the other employees and he could get it back, along with Maria's shoes.

Bucky stopped at the table after he emerged, leaning over Maria to kiss her. "I'll see you later," he said as he straightened.

She swatted lightly at him. "Get out of here."

With a grin to break his face, he head out the door and back down the hall to his own apartment. Steve was at the table with his sketchbook, looking frustrated and stressed, when Bucky entered.

"Whatever you're working on is probably bad for your blood pressure," Bucky said, kicking his shoes off into the closet.

Steve gave him an aggravated look. "So the news said there was a hostage situation at that club you went to last night," he said, probably gearing up for a speech that would be nothing but fussy worryings at him.

"Yeah," Bucky said, walking over to the table. He draped his coat over the back of his seat. "We got out, everything's fine. So don't worry." He pointed his finger at Steve sternly. "I mean it. I didn't get hurt, neither did Maria, we got out without trouble, everything's fine."

The extreme levels of worry in Steve's tensed expression relaxed into resignation, then into affectionate exasperation. "I can't let you go anywhere without me."

"Oh yes you can," Bucky said. "You don't get to follow me down the hall to her place."

Steve's eyes rolled heavenward. "Oh trust me, that is one place I will absolutely never follow you. It sounds like your night ended okay, at least."

Bucky got a wide grin on his face. "More than okay."

"So what all happened?" Steve asked, paused, then narrowed his eyes. "At the club, not after it."

That got a laugh out of Bucky. "Steve, I'm not going to give you the birds and the bees discussion." He got up and grabbed his jacket. "Let me go get dressed. It's a long story."

"Entertaining one, I'll bet," Steve said.

"All the way through."


End file.
